On the day BJP leader Rajib Banerjee returned to his erstwhile party of TMC, BJP vice president Dilip Ghosh warned that "the agents who are still damaging the prospects of the BJP from within" will be thrown out. In a Facebook post, the former BJP state president said: "Many agents had entered into our party before the assembly polls. Many of them have already left, while others still remain and sabotaging the party. They don't want the BJP to become stronger. We will throw each of them out," Ghosh said.
Rajib is the latest in a long line of BJP leaders to do a ghar wapsi to the TMC. He had switched over to the BJP in January and unsuccessfully contested the assembly elections from Domjur seat in Howrah district. Not only did Rajib lose as a BJP candidate in his home base, the saffron party drew a blank in the assembly elections in Howrah, as it could not win any of the 16 seats in the district. In June, Mukul Roy, along with his son Subhranshu Roy, had rejoined the TMC, who had won the West Bengal polls with a landslide margin. Roy, an erstwhile strongman in the TMC and aide of Mamata Banerjee, had left the regional party and joined the BJP in November 2017. He was the first major TMC leader to switch over to the BJP. He played a key role in the furious growth of the BJP in the intervening period.
Responding to Ghosh's statement, TMC state spokesman Kunal Ghosh said, "We don't know if Dilip Ghosh is referring to Suvendu Adhikari [the leader of opposition, who switched over from TMC to the BJP] as an agent. But the Facebook post reveals the growing feud within the BJP, which is falling like a pack of cards."
